Hey, hi, hello. I have emerged from the Texas snowpocalypse of 2021, ready to write about Spurs again. Mostly ready 🙃.
For those of you who might not know, Texas suffered an unprecedented natural disaster this past week when several days of snow and hard freeze overwhelmed the power grid, and many of us were left without electricity and/or clean water (or water at all) for days at a time. I won’t go on a political rant about it here because if you follow me on Twitter you’ll already know how I feel, but I would like to share this link for People First Future’s fundraiser for Feeding Texas. 100% of donations go to this important organization addressing food insecurity in Texas, which is a serious concern with grocery stores still impacted by supply shortages. Thank you for donating!
Now, on to Spurs business.
Although I was miraculously able to watch the first Europa League game with Wolfsberger on Thursday, since our power had come back on and stayed on after rolling blackouts the previous three days, there was still a lot going on with a water boil notice being announced and snow continuing to fall, so I can’t say I paid 100% attention to the match. But I was glad to see Sonny getting out of his scoring slump, Bale scoring and assisting, and goal contributions from the Brazilian contingent (Moura and Vinícius). I can’t remember anything else that happened… I can see on the match report that we conceded a penalty and it was Moura that committed the foul, but I honestly have no memory of that happening. It’s been a week, y’all.
West Ham burst our bubble
So let’s get to the game that I actually did follow closely, painful as that experience was. Spurs have really got to stop losing these early kickoff games because it’s a terrible way to start my morning.
It’s getting to the point where we just can’t trust Spurs to keep a clean sheet. It’s not like Dier and Sánchez are inexperienced when it comes to playing in the Premier League—even if they didn’t feature as often under Pochettino—but lately, they’ve been playing like total newcomers, completely lacking confidence. I honestly don’t know the solution. Either José sticks when them as the center back partnership for the sake of consistency and hopes that they iron things out, or he brings Toby back in, perhaps with one of the younger defenders (Tanganga, Rodon) to give them valuable experience. While I don’t think top 4 is out of the realm of possibility (though it’s getting close to being out of reach), it won’t be the end of the world if we have a few more disappointing results in the league for the sake of developing those younger players. The defense can’t really get much worse, so why not?
Reguilón mostly did well on his return from injury, and hopefully, he will provide a boost to the defense overall as he gets reintegrated. But speaking of Reggy, the players have to stop waiting for foul calls that aren’t going to come. That lapse in focus led directly to West Ham’s first goal. It’s never good to be trailing only 5 minutes into the match. On the topic of fouls, we need to tighten up on the fouls we’re committing ourselves. Three yellow cards in the first half really hampered us, particularly with Lamela needing to make an early sub out of the game.
On the positive side, his substitute was the only true bright spot of the game. Gareth Bale is finally looking like he’s approaching full fitness and sharpness. He was easily the best player on the day, and West Ham had their hands full dealing with him the entire second half. He may not have scored, but he did create the assist for Moura’s goal with a well-taken corner kick. Bale should definitely be starting in our important games going forward.
It feels so uncharacteristic of Kane and Son to flounder in a derby match the way they did for this game. I still think Son especially is struggling with built-up fatigue, and with our advancement into the Europa League round of 16 all but secured already, I would prefer to see him not play at all tomorrow. Højbjerg is also not looking as sharp as he did in the first half of the season, and Ndombele was downright anonymous against West Ham. It’s bleak times when our top performers for the season are failing to impact the game.
I was also a little disappointed in Dele’s performance, limited as it was to just over fifteen minutes. It’s not that he was particularly terrible—he seems full of ideas and a few moments of poor timing gone another way could have easily been the difference between the loss and a draw. I think the big issue is that Dele is low in on-pitch chemistry with his teammates at the moment, due to his sparse and sporadic appearances, especially when it comes to playing with the regular first-team lineup in the Premier League. It’s another one of those problems, like the center back partnership, that is only going to be improved with time.
As has been happening after every recent loss, there was renewed chatter about Mourinho being sacked. On the eve of our next match, that obviously hasn’t happened yet, but rumors are heating up about Julian Nagelsmann being the favorite to replace him. It would be a great appointment in terms of getting Spurs to favor a more attacking style of football, but something tells me that Nageslmann is too smart to willingly enter the snake pit of expectations that is managing Tottenham Hotspur. I realize that’s a very harsh thing to say about the club one supports, but it’s kind of true! We’re in quite a bad spot right now with the Europa League title our best chance of staying in Europe next season, and imagine the pressure of being the manager to follow up Mourinho, one of the sport’s coaching legends—even if his last few tenures have been mired with drama and disappointment. I just can’t see it happening. But I would love to be proven wrong…
Mourinho won’t be managing Spurs forever, but unless we have a truly catastrophic run of form in the next few games (knock on wood we don’t) it’s unlikely that he’ll be moving on until at least the summer. Like a global bank in the 2000s, he’s too big to fail. The board isn’t going to want to pay out his contract while there’s still the possibility that he can deliver a trophy, and right now we’re still in reasonable contention for two (how reasonable the League Cup title is looking now is a matter for debate, but just getting us to the final earned José some credit in the bank. I promise I will stop making bank references now). And there aren’t a lot of replacement candidates who would be available right now anyway.
So the theme for the rest of the season, in many aspects, is just to bide our time. See if José comes good with the trophies, see if our defenders will suddenly remember how to defend, and see if Bale and Dele can successfully complete their redemption arcs. For the good of the club and the sake of my sanity, I’m crossing my fingers for all three.
Fun stuff and happy news
Here’s a palate cleanser from the Tottenham social media team:
Rodon the Roadman! I don’t know about y’all, but I needed this laugh.
In other news, Oliver Skipp scored his first senior-level goal today. Shame it didn’t come in a Spurs shirt, but he can’t get back from his loan soon enough as far as I’m concerned. And I have a soft spot for Norwich, so if he helps them get back to the PL next season, good for them!
Harvey White also scored for his loan team, Portsmouth. Youth movement!
And something completely unrelated to Spurs and not even recent, but still enjoyable:
COYS